


The Decay of Time

by VoidRealmer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Can be seen as either romantic or platonic, Enemies to Friends, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Chamber of Secrets, Horcruxes, Immortal Harry Potter, Light Angst, M/M, Master of Death Harry Potter, One Shot, Reincarnated Harry Potter, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, Tom Riddle's Diary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:54:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28411263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoidRealmer/pseuds/VoidRealmer
Summary: “You said it yourself, Tom Riddle. Everybody dies. And one day, you’d look upon the world only to realize that everything you once knew is gone."The great expanse of time means nothing to an immortal.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 7
Kudos: 188





	The Decay of Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Czytling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Czytling/gifts).



> MERRY CHRISTMAS CZYTLING. IM SORRY IM LATE COMING OUT WITH THIS I had to get over my crippling new years depression and also my wonderful year-long writer's block.
> 
> I wrote this in an hour at 5 in the morning last night i know it sucks so sorry about that
> 
> I wanted to write a short idea to try to get me back into the writing motions, so i think this turned out okay in the end

The footsteps echoed around the ancient cavern, bouncing off of the ruins of something once so great. The pillars marking the foundation of Slytherin’s legacy slowly crumbled away, decaying under the slow ruin of time. Each crack in the walls, each crevice lining the cold stone floors, slowly being filled with the seeping blood of a snake as old as the architecture surrounding them, hidden under a castle with just as much history.

Harry gently placed a hand against one of the pillars, watching as dust slowly crumbled from the dome of the chamber, its slow decay being sped up by the disturbance to its slumber. The nostalgia set in quietly, finding a home in Harry’s chest like it so often does. He wondered how long it would take for the rest of the hidden temple to decay into dust—to lose the eternal battle to the whims of time, like everything, anything, eventually did. What would be the difference, he mused with a tired thought, between a single moment and a millennium to someone who is there to see both?

Even now, with his hand so small compared to what he’s used to, Harry could only wonder what it would be like to simply crumble away. To stop existing on a physical plane, no matter how long the wait, at least  _ eventually. _ A clock’s ticking may stop, but the endless idea of time goes on and on, at least in places where it exists.

The footsteps grew near, for what would be a villain without the need to gloat over a victory not yet achieved? The soft echo of Tom Riddle’s footsteps around the cavern walls, creating vibrations in the stone, as if the feeling of life was creating a ripple effect after going so long without anyone to share the space with. For did a place truly exist, if nobody was around to acknowledge its existence? Even in this moment, the chamber was only a fraction, a mere memory, of what it once was. What it could have been.

Nobody likes being forgotten, not even ancient remnants of what was once so loved.

Tom Riddle was tracing a finger down the engravings on Harry’s wand—not his real wand, of course, which would never listen to anyone but Death’s Master anyway, but the wand that belonged to Harry Potter, back when Harry still believed he was human. Believed that one day, he too would decay like the chamber of secrets around him. The basilisk lay dead across the way, half of its form still weaving up and down the narrow passageways. Even the Sword of Gryffindor was still slowly dripping blood from the sharp tip, Harry not even minding about the scratching noise it created as the blade ran across the stone ground. No stone would dare damage the artifact coveted by so many.

And the little black diary sat on the unassuming stone ground, only inches from the poisoned blade that would surely destroy it.

“Harry Potter. It seemed that your luck hadn’t quite run out. I would commend you on such a feat as slaying a basilisk, if that weren’t such a terrible move on your part. You should’ve died when you had the chance.” Tom Riddle spoke in a soft voice, an underlying forceful nature mixing with the anger of losing something so vital to his ancestry. His family.

Harry knew about what a family could mean to an orphan.

He removed his hand from the stone pillar, watching the dust create an imprint of his hand. “It wouldn’t work.”

“Oh, come now, Harry. Everybody dies.” Tom Riddle smiled, cold and detached, as if it didn’t contain his greatest fear. “Or do you believe yourself immortal because of the luck you’ve been gifted with thus far? I can assure you, it will not last.”

Harry had seen Riddle pale when the phoenix had dropped the diary in his lap, but Harry had only thrown it aside the moment it was given. With the attention off of the diary, as Tom had most likely decided Harry didn’t know it’s true importance, he had regained some of his confidence, keeping a wary eye on the blood pooling at the ground where Harry’s sword lay, only inches from certain death.

“Nothing lasts, Tom Riddle. Each and every thing decays to the concept of time. Your life force, this chamber, even this universe. Eventually, everything breaks down until there’s nothing left, and I will be alone once more.”

“Waxing poetry, Potter?” It was easy to see that Tom Riddle was becoming more unnerved, and not only because of the innocent little diary. “Perhaps you can join the Hogwarts ghosts and blather on about philosophy with them. I’m in no mood for your riddles.”

“A riddle, you say?” Harry finally turned towards the young boy, and that was all he was truly. The memory of a child, forgotten and abandoned, who had used anger as his anchor to sanity. “Here’s one: What do you call it when you’re trapped between wanting to be remembered and an entire society who wants nothing more than to forget about you?”

Riddle grit his teeth, far too curious for his own good. “Humor me.”

“I already told you what it was.”

His hand clenched a little tighter around the wand, raising it a bit higher as if in threat. “And what was that, exactly?”

“A Riddle.”

Silence, as the puzzle pieces clicked together inside his head, only for him to snarl in anger upon realizing what was meant. The wand was raised the rest of the way, with a spell upon his lips.

“You will not win,” Harry murmured, feeling a warning was necessary.

“I am far more powerful than you, and in case you haven’t noticed, still wandless. I could cast ten spells before you could learn to swing that sword around,” Riddle pointed out in a mocking tone.

“Perhaps,” Harry answered vaguely. “But you forget that your diary is only right there.” He gestured downwards, towards where the book lay at his feet. “However, I have no interest in fighting you, truly. It would be pointless, in the end. One of us will win, one of us will lose, and either way, things will change more for other people than they would us.”

Riddle made an aborted movement towards the diary when Harry mentioned it once again, finally realizing that he did in fact realize the importance of the leather-bound pages, but ultimately stayed in place. Perhaps he saw something in Harry’s eyes that kept him from moving, blood red countering vibrant green, the same shade as the curse he was about to send.

“And then what would you propose, if we didn’t fight? Surely you don’t think I’d let you leave here alive, after all that you’ve learned.”

“You would not have a choice. I do not understand why you crave immortality, when it has brought nothing but death.”

“Because I will live on, and I will prove myself to those who thought me weak or forgettable. With immortality, I would never be forgotten, like you so claim I am. And yet, everyone fears me so much they refuse to utter my name in remembrance of the wrath I brought upon them.” Tom explained, wand lowering once again. His arrogant wording lacked the true bite behind them, as he doubted his own words.

“You said it yourself, Tom Riddle. Everybody dies. And one day, you’d look upon the world only to realize that everything you once knew is gone. People only live for so long, magical or not. Phoenixes only rebirth so many times before the strain of time gets to them. Buildings collapse, great empires fall, and the universe ends. And yet you want to go on living until the end of time itself, when no soul lasts that long. What would you do when the universe splits apart and you are left in the void, where time doesn’t move and your split soul keeps you from truly dying,” Harry murmured. “You are only human, Tom Riddle. You should appreciate it.”

Riddle is quiet, as if truly taking in Harry’s words instead of brushing them off for a child’s delusions. “.. What are you?”

Harry played the innocent card. “What do you mean?” 

“You tell me to appreciate being human, being able to die, as if you are not able,” Riddle deducted.

“I have been alive for a  _ very _ long time, Tom Riddle. Long enough to see this universe end and create itself once again. I have seen hundreds of other universes meet the same fate. But, for right now, I’m here. I’m here, in this universe, living through the concept of Harry Potter yet again, because it was my beginning, and yet it will never be my end.”

“And why does death not claim you?”

Harry smiled, though it didn’t quite feel real. “Why would Death claim their Master?”

The silence returned, with Riddle staring somewhere off to Harry’s side, lost in deep thought. Harry didn’t mind waiting—if there was anything he was good at, it was waiting for things that would never happen to come. Even now, he was still waiting, and he would continue to do so until he could fade from existence as well.

“.. Earlier, you mentioned that fighting would be pointless. You never answered my question—if we didn’t fight, what would we do?” Tom Riddle asks, all of his previous anger gone, replaced with pure curiosity. The idea of fighting was all but forgotten.

“Well, you could always come with me,” was Harry’s easy reply.

He held out his hand, so much smaller than what he was used to, his entire being confined to a twelve year-old body, and Tom Riddle didn’t even hesitate to grab it.

**Author's Note:**

> 5 Minutes Later:
> 
> Dumbledore, squinting: Harry my boy why is Tom Riddle here  
> Harry: i stabbed a snake and he was impressed  
> Tom, still holding Harry's hand: I've only known Harry for a day but if anything happened to him I'd kill everyone in this castle and then myself  
> Dumbledore:  
> Dumbledore: what


End file.
